Arlo Gust

(Read: ~10 minutes)

Letitia Bix believed she witnessed a miracle, watching the scene at the festival unfold below. Peering from Rosa’s bedroom through the pouring rain, she cried out in horror when the supports of the giant tent began to wobble and the heavy canvas roof rippled violently. The structure teetered on collapse until Rosa emerged, lifted up by a wave of inspired people. She saw her daughter embrace the dangerous moment and protect the souls around her, calming the crowd, who began to dance. Without thinking, Letitia hopped around the room along with Rosa and her own invisible conga line.

Earlier in the morning, she struggled to stand without feeling the need to throw up. In fact, Letitia experienced multiple dizzy spells in the preceding months, and had been catching her breath for years, attributing the symptoms to stress and fatigue. The morning of the festival, Rosa put her foot down and uninvited her mother, demanding she stay home and rest until she saw a doctor. Letitia’s mother agreed to stay in Rosa’s bedroom and sit by the window to watch the festival crowd and hear the sounds from the stage.

There’s no doubt Letitia Bix lived for her daughter, no matter how she felt physically. She told friends her life began with Rosa’s birth. As for Rosa’s father, no one knows his identity for sure. He and Letitia spent one night together and then she never saw him again.

Soon after her high school graduation, Letitia got a job waiting tables at a busy greasy spoon in a downtown hotel catering to sailors paying government rates. Fun fact, Norfolk hosts the largest navy base in the world and also boasts the world’s largest and dirtiest coal depot belching large clouds of toxic dust, settling on every surface across the city in a fine black layer of pollution. Letitia set out for her lunch shift at the diner before the gray haze of the city’s industry began to dim the sun. Then she worked until close. Letitia took a dozen lunch and dinner shifts each week, regularly working seven-day stretches on her feet, powering through her exhaustion.

What the restaurant lacked in quality, the chefs made up for with quantity. Cheap food piled high made a perfect combination for sailors on a per diem. Regulars considered Letitia one of the best features about the place. She kept cool and affable in the weeds, always remembering she worked for tips. She flirted with customers who wanted to get lucky to make the long hours profitable. Before long, she made enough to rent her own small, one-bedroom apartment. She bought a pull-out couch in case guests came over despite lacking close friends or family.

She made a few acquaintances at work though. The morning server, who toiled at the restaurant for decades, took Letitia under her wing right away. Letitia usually arrived early for her shift to help the old lady between breakfast and lunch. While ornery with most everyone else, the elder server loved to give Letitia tips and words of wisdom gained from years working and thinking on her feet. She asked Letitia about her day and cared about the response. Letitia lost track of the woman, though she always remembered the woman’s kindness and told Rosa later.

Mother and daughter talked about Rosa’s dad, too. She noticed his scuffed boots first, then his worn uniform. The nametag on his chest read Jones. She noticed many of his imperfections the first time she served him dinner. A squat stature and pudgy middle accentuated his thinning hairline. She waited on him a couple times over the next few months, the only conversation taking his order. One slow night, he sat eating dinner by himself while reading a book. Suddenly, she found him intriguing. Loneliness and the hint of spring in the early March air stirred her to ask him about the paperback.

“It’s alright. No one will ban it,” he answered with a chuckle.

“Kind of a weird statement about a book,” Letitia commented. The sailor shrugged the comment off. Letitia recognized the hurt in his eyes and defensiveness in his slumped shoulders and crossed arms, a look stemming from being an outsider. She often felt the same way and recognized she hurt his feelings with the comment. Trying to make him feel better, she asked him what he meant about banning the book.

“People enjoy banning books in my hometown,” he answered. “I always made sure to read those books because they make points that force you to think. Whether you agree or not, making up your own mind is key,” he paused and looked up at Letitia directly in the eyes. “The Navy offered a way out of my braindead hometown. Turned into a different type of lobotomy,” he laughed again. His edgy rhetoric excited Letitia, who felt the same way about life stuck in Norfolk. She dismissed the man previously, but now his manner was thoughtful yet indifferent, the attractive dynamic of the antihero, who we want to reform while hoping for our own rescue.

The sailor excused himself for the evening with a comment about an early morning inspection. Before he left, Letitia asked his name.

“Everyone just calls me Jones,” he answered.

“Alright Jonesy, see you later,” she flirted.

He smiled and turned to leave, stopping a few tables from the door. He pivoted and approached Letitia.

“Join me for dinner and a movie tomorrow,” he said. Fortunately, for the first time in over a week, she could say yes, and did.

She met the squatty sailor at an Italian restaurant downtown then saw a movie. He arrived with a fresh haircut and shaved face, wearing civilian clothes, a pressed pair of slacks and polo shirt tucked in at the waist plus a shine on his leather shoes. Letitia put on makeup and did her hair. She wore a form fitting dress bought on sale months before though never worn. The morning of the date, she bought a pair of high heels and black stockings.

Jones ordered a bottle of red wine for the table. The waiter eyed Letitia but didn’t ask her age. After half a glass, Letitia giggled at her date’s cynical observations about their fellow diners, their politics, income and the cars they’d drive home. After dinner, the couple held hands and walked to the movie. He kissed her under the marquee after the movie and Letitia invited him back to her apartment. Approximately nine months later, Rosa entered the world.

As to why Rosa’s father disappeared, maybe he had a wife and avoided an indiscretion by never going back to the diner. The Navy moves sailors around all the time and perhaps he never got the chance to see Norfolk or Letitia again. Plenty of myths exist about him and dozens of men emerged claiming to be her papa after she became wealthy and famous. Amateur sleuths publish their list of potential sperm donors all the time. None definitively proved their claims and the question remains unresolved.

With no parents or close family to call on for help, Letitia struggled being a single mother at first. Her older siblings suffered with their own problems and she lived on public support for a year with a newborn Rosa. When Rosa became old enough for child care, Letitia cobbled together service industry jobs and food assistance to make ends meet. Years later, sitting in her kid’s room, Letitia remembered the trip to the museum with Rosa’s third grade class. She understood the eight-year-old faced a special future. Watching the festival across the street, she still couldn’t believe her baby graduated from high school, becoming a young adult right in front of her. All of the time in between happened in a flash. Rosa looked after herself now and Letitia looked forward to expanding her own horizons while traveling. She started a list of places to go, warm places, cold places, both destinations far away and nearby hotspots.

Unfortunately, she never made any of those trips. After a series of visits with several different doctors, Letitia learned a genetic defect in her heart caused the symptoms she had been experiencing. The defect developed in utero and doctors deemed it impossible to fix the problem. The issue explained the years of fatigue and related symptoms Letitia experienced, now she needed a heart transplant in order to survive. Her doctors put her on the transplant list immediately and crossed their fingers while applying treatment options meant to help her feel better and to keep her going for a while.

How long La Bohème knew about her mom’s illness before she intervened on the day of the festival is unclear. Maybe she saw the ultimate outcome because Letitia never got a replacement for her broken heart. The university hospital’s transplant committee made the final decision on the matter. A brash surgeon with a busy schedule delivered the news.

“I’m surprised you’re still alive at all,” he said to her when he came into the room to hand down her death sentence. He explained that donor hearts were available. He bragged about his surgical skills and pointed out the great odds for Letitia’s surviving the actual transplant procedure. The problem centered around the hospital’s survival rate criteria, which required the patient to live long enough after a surgery to justify the enormous costs. The transplant committee doubted a new heart would reverse the damage done to Letitia’s body over the years, certainly leading to further complications down the road. Therefore, their collective consensus was Letitia wouldn’t live enough additional years to justify the life-saving expense to the government agencies overseeing the hospital’s funding and credentialing.

The surgeon ended the meeting by telling Letitia if her condition improved, the hospital might reconsider the decision.

Letitia’s condition got worse.

After a while, the hope of transplant surgery by the university faded. Rosa became her primary caregiver, though Madame Rouge, Connie and even Clem helped out taking care of Letitia’s needs.

La Bohème raged bitterly when the hospital denied Letitia a transplant. She contemplated revenge on an organization that chose not to try and save her mother, tracking the value of a dollar but forgetting what her life is worth. Letitia saw the anger taking a toll on her daughter. She sat Rosa down one day to comfort her.

“Lots of people search for meaning in their life,” the mother began. “I’ve never really needed to because you came. During the field trip, I realized you were bigger than just us and worried what you, your special reality, would mean. Life compels us to worry about what will come next,” Letitia said, then smiled. “Except for you.”

“No, even me,” La Bohème corrected.

Letitia frowned and patted her daughter’s knee. “As a parent, knowing if you’re doing right by your child is a challenge. Seeing you now, the answer is clear because you turned out alright,” Letitia chuckled. “I admit though, some people gave me pause, like Dr. Gaston and his true motives. But, he offered the best option at the time, despite the sense he was always holding back his true thoughts from me,” Letitia shrugged.

“His ideas will require time to become apparent,” Rosa agreed.

“Whatever happened to him?” Letitia asked.

“He’s living successfully in Mexico.”

Letitia smirked. “For some reason, he gave me the feeling there was something else outside his work at DOPS. He showed up skeptical, at first but you forced him to reconsider. Madame Rouge raised my concerns for different reasons. Right away, the two of you connected, standing out there in the parking lot,” Letitia remembered. “My hope was Madame Rouge could teach you to deal with your gifts. Letting you get close to her hurt more than Dr. Gaston. Honestly, I’m still secretly jealous of your bond,” she added with a whisper.

“Oh Mom, you shouldn’t be jealous. I’ll never love anyone like you,” Rosa said, grasping both of her mother’s hands. “A few nights ago, I sat restless with my window open and eavesdropped for hours on the sounds outside, mostly desperate bugs, calling out for contact. In the moments before dawn, their chatter ended, and quiet briefly filled the air. A bird in a tree next to the strip mall shattered the silent interlude with a melodic whistle, answered by another, with more following. Scientists say trees communicate with other trees, mushrooms with other mushrooms, flowers through the bees. These interactions mean the world to them and bind them together. It’s difficult to imagine all the ties binding existence together, but our bond will always be the most special to me. Our conversations will always matter most.”

Mother and daughter hugged and cried together. Pulling away, wiping at her tears, Letitia recalled someone Rosa never met. “You remind me of your great-grandmother. She was my hero and made me feel safe because she faced the world bravely and with kindness.”

Rosa leaned in. “Tell me more about her.”

“The day she could afford her own car comes to mind. She bought an old used behemoth blowing thick black smoke out the tailpipe. I could barely see over the dashboard while sitting next to her on a worn out, bench seat, with a pinchy spring sticking out. But the engine ran strong and Grannie drove it like a sports car.”

Letitia began to act out her grandmother peering over a skinny steering wheel, yanking it left and right in a pretend road race. She recalled her grandmother’s comments to certain drivers while making her way through the busy downtown streets in Norfolk. “Oh, come on friend! What are you doing?” or “Sure, have it your way friend. Be my guest.”

Letitia broke character, back to herself. “The thought crossed my mind, Wow, Grannie sure does have a lot of friends, which seemed completely plausible at the time. Of course all those people weren’t her friends. My grandmother was just trying not to swear about traffic in front of me, her impressionable young granddaughter. Whether she meant to or not, she made a huge impression by showing me not to make enemies just because people mess up, or get in your way. The key is to enjoy the ride. Ask Grannie and all her friends out for a drive.

Letitia pretended to honk a car horn and waved at Rosa, who laughed and waved back.

“You’re helping people, I remember peeking out the front window and seeing all those people lined up to talk with you on Christmas Eve. Certainly you’ve already started making money, too, because Madame Rouge never worked for free,” Letitia ventured.

“The money doesn’t matter.”

“You’re a business woman now and must be wary of people and their crackpot ideas. Despite my story about Grannie, the world is full of assholes.”

“Mom!”

“I’m sure you can handle tough situations. And I’m so proud of you and the young woman you’ve become. Lecturing isn’t my goal, it’s just, I don’t have a lot …” her voice trailed off and they sat silently for a few seconds contemplating the end of the thought. After a few moments, Letitia smiled again, then spoke. “I don’t worry about what’s next because time preserves a piece of us. You showed me the truth.”

Rosa looked deep into her mother’s eyes. “We’re entangled in an entity transcending space and time. We experience these invisible parts of us, which experience us in what they think of as their time, though none of us know.”

“I tried to lie to myself about the truth at first, when you first pointed at the French lady in the painting. So I forgive those who do the same, like the director at DOPS. I wanted to punch him in the nose after that letter,” Letitia growled.

Rosa laughed out loud.

“To dismiss what he knows about you, what he’s seen. But, he’s no different than most people, trying to protect himself, his money, his power. Yet, one claim he made does ring true after all these years, hurting is easier than healing, even if you don’t mean to do harm,” Letitia told her daughter and paused for a second to catch her breath. “You still need to try and help people,” she finished and gave her daughter a kiss and a hug.

Letitia struggled in the last few weeks of her life as her heart failed and the rest of her body wasted away, starved of oxygen. Rosa stayed by her side, sleeping in a chair, or talking with Letitia, whose mind stayed sharp right up until the end when she finally asked for help with the pain. Rosa held Letitia’s hand, kissed her on the forehead, whispered she loved her. A few minutes later, Letitia’s heart gave out and a home hospice nurse made no effort to revive her. Rosa grabbed her mother and held her, rocking back and forth on the bed, only a few weeks after her mother’s thirty-eighth birthday.

Madame Rouge sobbed next to Rosa.

Connie came running into the room panicking, too late to say goodbye, she loved Rosa and Letitia by then. In fact, when Letitia became too sick to work, Connie stopped accepting rent from her, and paid medical bills.

Soon, several more people showed up to pay their respects at Letitia’s deathbed, including a couple of her nurses and one of her favorite doctors. The room cried together, including Clem, who leaned near the door and wiped away his tears with the back of his shirt sleeve.

Letitia mostly kept to herself. She didn’t socialize outside of work and joined the majority of Americans who rarely or never attend religious services. The day after Letitia’s death, Connie made a sizable contribution to the Methodist church a few blocks away from the strip mall. The congregation needed to raise funds to restore the church’s deteriorating steeple and Connie’s contribution closed their funding gap significantly. The church happily agreed to host her memorial service and bury Letitia in their congregation’s cemetery.

Madame Rouge and Connie spread the word for the neighborhood to come out for the service. Countless people crowded into the church by the time the preacher took his place on the pulpit, and more stood outside.

Standing behind microphones mounted on a lectern, he spoke eloquently on his view of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. How Jesus was God in flesh, sent to offer us a way to his Glory. When finished, he motioned for La Bohème to join him behind the microphones.

Standing up from the first pew, she took a few steps towards the front of the church’s sanctuary and smiled up at the preacher and thanked him for his kind words about her mother and for his service to the community. With her back to the crowd, she looked at a framed picture of her mother displayed near the choir. She wiped away her tears and took a deep breath. Then she turned to face the people who filled the church’s pews, still standing on their same level.

When La Bohème began to speak, her voice cried out like a lonely violin, playing a song filled with life and death, pain and hope, existence.

“Mom believed in me and also protected me with love and strength, even while deteriorating health frightened her. It’s okay to be scared. She never lost the resolve to beat back the fear and make the most of her remaining life the way she knew how, being there for others. Seeing how she defeated a killer disease every day, for so long, taught me the meaning of bravery. We must be brave despite making mistakes and experiencing pain in the process. Only by trying do we have a chance to make life better.

Mom worried most about making life better for the people hurting around her. The last time we talked, barely able to breathe, her entire body aching, starved of oxygen, she asked about me. About my life. We talked about my day and I told her about silly, mundane issues.

Her entire life, she took care of me and others while always rising to meet challenge after challenge, with tears, a few swears, but definitely with a smile and a laugh.

Cry with me while remembering mom.

Curse if you must, I did.

Then smile and laugh.

Because mom wanted joy for us and herself.

Remember love is strength when doubting yourself.

Remember to love when doubting the strength of others.

I promise to remember, Mom.

I will always love you.”